


Honey and Vinegar

by dontneedaclassroom



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Flash Fic, M/M, Soul Bond, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 21:24:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1832770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontneedaclassroom/pseuds/dontneedaclassroom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the witches died, the soul-bond or whatever didn’t go away like Deaton expected. He said it was because the feelings were already there, and the witches had just awakened a tie that had been slowly growing already. Stiles and Derek gave each other the side-eye, shrugged, and tried to ignore that little curl of empathy in the back of their minds when the other one was sad or angry or horny.</p><p>The thing was, they were pretty good at it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honey and Vinegar

Here is the story:

Stiles had a massive crush on Derek all through their high school wolfy shenanigans. He’s always had a thing for hot and sarcastic with great transportation (car/shoes), so sue him. One night junior year, he even got up the courage to ask Derek to prom.

Derek reared away from him, eyes frantic, and went stone still. Stiles backed it up a few steps, made some joke at his own expense, told a story about the time Scott got shot down by a girl freshman year, just kept talking until Derek’s shoulders came back down and his eyebrows relaxed the tiniest fraction.

Senior year, some witches caught Stiles and used his blood to summon his soulmate, and Derek was the one who arrived, whitefaced, harsh lines around his mouth, growling. Stiles looked at his face and felt the worst about himself he’d ever felt, knowing that the slow trickle of blood down the back of his thighs had called Derek to yet another shitty situation with messed up mind-fuck magic about sex and love.

When the witches died, the soul-bond or whatever didn’t go away like Deaton expected. He said it was because the feelings were already there, and the witches had just awakened a tie that had been slowly growing already. Stiles and Derek gave each other the side-eye, shrugged, and tried to ignore that little curl of empathy in the back of their minds when the other one was sad or angry or horny. The nice part was that it didn't take them long to get the hang of blocking it out.

When college kept Stiles away from Beacon Hills for months at a time, he met a dude on campus named Algernon of all godawful things, but he went by Non and they bonded over stupid names and the politics of self-definition. The first time Stiles mentioned Non to the pack, he couldn’t help stealing an apprehensive glance at Derek, but Derek was relaxed in his chair, and was that a smile? A softening, anyway, and the curl in the back of Stiles’ brain felt like relief.

Non wasn’t Stiles’ true love or anything. He dated a couple of people, Mindy, Tamika, Davin, and a different guy named Derek, which Stiles and Kira thought was hilarious even if nobody else did. When Stiles got his degree, though, he was with Ben, a pack-adjacent human from San Diego who’d had a fall-out with his alpha. The tug in the back of Stiles’ head was barely a twinge now, like someone had tied a single piece of dental floss around the top of his spine and it pulled in Derek’s direction all the time, just a little bit. Ben smiled a lot in a doofy way and he was good with his hands, cooking and fixing things around the house. Derek and Scott talked to him a lot about what went down with his alpha and drove him away from his pack, but although Stiles watched them like a hawk, Derek seemed perfectly fine.

~

When Ben proposes to Stiles, the first person Stiles calls is Derek. They meet at the new Starbucks by the highway.

“Ben proposed,” Stiles says, before Derek has even set his latte on the table. “We’re getting married in August.”

Derek collapses into the chair like all his strings have been cut, stares up at the ceiling, and for a second Stiles is terrified that of all the things that have happened between them, this is the thing that will break Derek open. But then Derek brings his head up to look at Stiles, grinning with his whole face.

“Oh thank god,” Derek says. “Congratulations.”

Stiles isn’t sure exactly what Derek’s grateful for - that Stiles got free, that Derek did, that in the end they thwarted the witches entirely - but Stiles can still feel that little tug, and he knows that Derek isn’t putting on some brave face. Slowly, Stiles grins back.

**Author's Note:**

> I guess I read too much soulbond fic this weekend - who knew it was possible?  
> Re-posted from my tumblr with minor edits. (dontneedaclassroom.tumblr.com)
> 
> Unbeta'd; concrit welcome and encouraged.
> 
> Edited a bit for morning-after regrets.


End file.
